Tokyo DisneySea
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Tokyo DisneySea is unlike any other Disney park. This is mainly due to the fact that it is not owned by Disney at all, but rather the Oriental Land Company who licenses the use of Disney themes and characters. The license allows the park to feature many different Disney properties and use their own as well. The mascot of Tokyo DisneySea is Duffy, the Disney bear. Although Mickey and other Disney characters are seen around the park, the real star is Duffy. There’s dedicated stores, viewpoints, and more around the park that allow the visitors to show their love of Duffy.
The other main aspect that separates DisneySea from every other park is the overall theme and layout of the park. Instead of different lands DisneySea has ports of call that are all themed off places around the world and Disney movies. This layout is similar to how Epcot is done. Every area is nautical themed, although some are less than others, and the waterfront of each area is a prominent factor in its design.
Visiting DisneySea at Tokyo Disney Resort was an amazing experience. It is beautifully themed and has many fantastic rides to experience. To get there, we rode the subway out to Maihama station, then took the Disney Resort Line to Tokyo DisneySea park. The Disney Resort Line is a monorail that runs around the whole resort. (If you’re going to Disneyland, you don’t need to take the monorail; you just walk about 5 minutes to the park entrance.) The monorail has a really cute design, with Mickey-shaped windows and hand-holds. The interior of the monorail is spacious, which is good because it can get crowded, especially early in the morning!
After going through the line to enter the park, there’s a large open area, called the DisneySea Plaza, before you enter the park proper. On one visit, Mickey Mouse was on a platform to our right with a marching band, welcoming us to DisneySea! All around are tall, Italian-style buildings, and there is a huge globe in the center of the space. On the other side of the globe, there is an archway under the Italian-style buildings, which leads to the park. As you walk under the archway, you get a glimpse of the magical lands ahead! You can see a Renaissance-era citadel with a golden dome. A volcano looms in the background, and it’s almost as if you are passing through a mystical portal to the 15th century Mediterranean coast.
You emerge in the Mediterranean Harbor area of the park, surrounded by water and more Italian-style buildings. Instead of being divided up into different “lands” as Disneyland is, DisneySea is made up of seven different “ports” or coastal areas. The theming is gorgeous and immersive in each port! From the Mediterranean Harbor, skirting around to the right of the water leads to the Mysterious Island, the port that includes the volcano we saw earlier: Mount Prometheus. You can find your first ride of the day in a cave: Journey to the Center of the Earth! When we went straight there at park opening, we practically walked onto the ride, but when we exited, the wait was already 45 minutes long. Walking out of the cave, we found ourselves in the center of the volcano crater, with a small lake in the middle and metal walkways going all the way around. If you go down the steps toward the lake, you’ll come to the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride.
Journey to the Center of the Earth is a fantastic ride! When you wind through the queue area in the cavern, you come across scientific machines and tools on display. After you get through the first area of the line, you have to wait to be loaded into an elevator that will take you further down. Then, you wait in line again before getting loaded into a mine car to take you on your journey deep into the Earth! The mine car has a few rows of seating, and we were seated in the front row. The ride starts off as a slow tour of the caverns, which are filled with colorful glowing crystals and strange lifeforms native to these deep caverns. I won’t spoil the rest of the ride, but let’s say things get a little less relaxed (more suspenseful!) and it becomes more of a roller coaster than your average dark ride. It has a fun, though abrupt, finish!
The second attraction in the Mysterious Island is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This is more of a classic dark ride that takes you “underwater.” Each submarine has three portholes through which riders can view the journey (2 seats per porthole). Since the ride wasn’t crowded, we were alone in our submarine. There were gauges showing the water pressure, among other important measurements. Along the way, you get to see various species of marine plant and animal life as well as spooky shipwrecks.
The Mysterious Island is in the center of the park. From there, we will describe the different ports of call in a clockwise direction. Above the Mysterious Island on the map is the Lost River Delta, so we’ll start there.
The Lost River Delta is themed to represent the Central American jungles, complete with a river and the ruins of an ancient civilization. This port of call is home to the Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull. This ride is inside a beautiful Mesoamerican pyramid. The ride itself is nearly identical to the CA Disneyland Indiana Jones ride, but it’s still really fun! The other major ride in the Lost River Delta is Raging Spirits, a roller coaster with a 360 degree loop.
Moving clockwise, we came across the Mermaid Lagoon! Outside, it looks like Atlantica from The Little Mermaid. It’s gorgeous! Inside the Mermaid Lagoon is an indoor area filled with kiddie rides and play areas. One play area that looked particularly fun - though wet - had jets of water shooting up from the floor. Everything there looks like it’s under the sea, and there’s a great gift shop inside a whale! The main attraction in this area for us (okay, for Michelle) was the The Little Mermaid musical showing in the Mermaid Lagoon Theater. In order to see the show, we lined up in groups at the doors to the theater. While we waited, we all sat on the floor. When the doors opened, we filed into the theater and found seats. The rows are formed in a horseshoe shape. The show features sea creature puppets, a large King Triton, virtual versions of Ariel’s sisters on screens on the walls, and, most impressively, Ariel dancing and somersaulting over the crowd while suspended from the ceiling. The show was really fun - all of it was in Japanese, but most of the songs were taken straight from the movie, so if you’re familiar with them and with the story, you will still enjoy it. Michelle highly recommends it.
Near the Mermaid Lagoon is the Arabian Coast. Walking through the area feels like walking through the streets of Agrabah! I wish we had been able to take more time to wander through this area - it felt really big. There’s a magic show with the Genie here, a two-level carousel in a beautiful, beautiful building, Jasmine’s Flying Carpets ride centered around her palace fountain (really pretty!), and, finally, Sindbad’s Storybook Voyage (which is the only ride we actually went on). Sindbad’s Storybook Voyage is not based on any Disney tale I’ve heard of, but the ride is wonderful. It’s a lot like the “it’s a small world” ride in that you travel through the ride on boats, and the entire ride is set to music. The music is sung by Sindbad as we follow his various heroic adventures with his cute little tiger pal, Chandu. Sindbad has a great voice, and we really enjoyed this ride! The ride is relaxing and fun, and the animatronic figures and backgrounds are elaborately decorated.
The Mediterranean Harbor, by the entrance of the park, feels like you’ve stepped into southern Italy. There are Venetian gondola rides, a steamboat that goes all around the park via waterways, and across the harbor there’s Fortress Explorations, “interactive fun” in the Renaissance-era citadel fortress. Since we last visited, Soaring: Fantastic Flight has also opened in this area! The harbor itself is the stage for fireworks and water shows like the Easter Fashion show. Besides those attractions, there are many shops and delicious restaurants in this area. There’s a bridge across the harbor that leads to the center of the park: the Mysterious Island and Port Discovery. The bridge looks like the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy. You can walk through the buildings on the bridge (a good place to escape the hot sunshine and sit in the shade!) as you make your way through the park.
But before you cross the bridge, you can take a detour through the American Waterfront! The theming of this area looks and feels like New York or Boston. We strolled down the streets of tall brick buildings, complete with turn-of-the-century advertising and storefronts. We sat on a bench overlooking a lovely little harbor with steamboats and fishing boats both big and small, including the massive S.S. Columbia. You can mount the steps up to the electric railway, which will drop you off in Port Discovery and save your feet a little wear and tear. In addition to all that gorgeous theming, there’s a little Cape Cod-esque fishing village, complete with a lighthouse.
The American Waterfront is home to the Tower of Terror and Toy Story Mania. We did not go on Toy Story Mania, but we did go on the Tower of Terror! This was our first time riding any version of the Tower of Terror, and we loved it! The queue area sets you up with the spooky story of the disappearance of the hotel’s owner years ago and then ends with a thrilling broken elevator ride!
Last but not least, Port Discovery is “a futuristic marina located across the horizons of time.” This area has really nice views of the water, which seemed to blend in with the actual sea beyond the seawall. There are two main rides here (besides the electric railway): Aquatopia and Nemo & Friends SeaRider. The Nemo & Friends ride is a little like a Star Tours-style ride where riders are seated in a small room facing a screen that shows the events of the ride while the seats/room moves around. It was cute! Aquatopia can be an especially fun ride at night with the light glimmering off the water.
Due to Tokyo DisneySea’s layout and nautical theme there aren’t any parades, but rather the park has water shows. These shows take place at the main water area at the entrance to the park in the Mediterrean Harbor. We were able to catch the Christmas show just after our lunch at Magellan’s. We watched the show from the opposite side of the harbor so there we didn’t get to see one of the three stages with dancers. The show consisted of various boats coming into the harbor filled with different characters and Santa Claus. These boats stopped at the stages and performed in front of crowds while boats pulled around massive ornaments.
There you have it, the seven ports at DisneySea: Mediterranean Harbor, Lost River Delta, Mermaid Lagoon, Arabian Coast, Mysterious Island, American Waterfront, and Port Discovery. DisneySea is an incredible experience. There are some great unique rides here as well as beloved Disney favorites. But even beyond the rides, the park is super enjoyable simply for its fantastic theming and amazing food options. When we visited the park in the fall, it was also decorated for Christmas! The park was full of Christmas lights and cute Christmas theming, including decorated trees and some especially creative decor in the Lost River Delta area. The Cape Cod area is especially beautifully decorated, and the American Waterfront had a huge gorgeous tree, surrounded by boats with twinkling lights lining their rigging.
Google Maps Link: Tokyo DisneySea
